The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1887-07-13


well-timed run from station to station
and learns to CLEAN comfort from
the perfectly satisfactory working of
the great machine intrusted to his
care 1t is when there is something.
be 1t ever so tritling, "out of killer. v
that he is most visibly oppressed. Man
and machine get into very close SYM
pathy, 50 to speak. He can tell by the
very fee" of the locomotive if all is as
it should be in that complex mechanism.
He comes to regard it, in course of time,
as living creature, as full of impulse
as of power.
On the freight locomotive there is
more independent action and thought
than there is on the passenger engine
In crossing the sagebrush wilds, where
the track extends in Decline for miles
ahead and is all free from obstruction,
the freight engineer can "slow down"
and amuse himself by throwing coal at
the jackrabbits along the line. A rail-
road man said the other day that tons
of good fuel were thus thrown away
every year, and the ammunition used
for the sport was either ineffective or
the engineers were very poor marks
men, for he had never known single
jackrabbit to bite the dvst as a result
of all the throwing.
Some engineers on the roads III this
State amuse themselves by adding to
the list of their bovine victims.
Running into CATTLE" said. one
railroader recently, "gets to be a sort
of passion with engineers. They like
the excitement of the chase. 1t is
vastly better sport than the English
fox hunting which they are importing
to this country. You may laugh at
the idea, but really after an engine
driver has run down cattle on half
dozen occasions he begins to lose
sight of the cruelty of the thing. If
this were not so, why does he clap on
all steam and rush into drove of cat
tie instead of slowing down and CIV
ing them a chance for their livesp To
a certain extent the fault is not his
that stock is slaughtered on the track,
but no one believes that there are not
many cases in which such accidents
could be avoided"
Firemen as well as engineers enter
more keenly into the excitement of
railroading than do the train hands
outside the cab. In many cases where
it is the duty of the fireman to watch
the track and give the whistle and
bell signals his position is second only
in responsibility to that Of the
driver.
The occupants of the cab, by the
very nature of their position, are more
wrought upon by the narrowing dan
gers of the rail, often having their
nerves strung to the fullest tension by
incidents which never come to the
knowledge of the conductor or brake
men who may be chatting jovially or
nodding sleepily in the rear.
Beside the duties of the conductor
of the present day and those Of
the conductor of twenty years
ago could not be considered
arduous. Travel has increased to
such a wonderful extent since then,
new stations have sprung up so thickly
along the roads, and from plain and
simple system the business of ticket
ing passengers from this point to that,
with stop-over here and connect
ing line there, has become so complex
as to require considerable schooling
for its perfect performance, as well as
no small command of everyday knowl-
edge and capacity for reading
character, ability to rise to any situa-
ton that may present itself and
the exercise of good jud gment.
As an illustration of the value
of the latter quality, a story is
told of a Western freight conductor,
three cars of whose train were de-
rallied one cay near Council Bluffs.
The conductor took the red signal and
went back to flag an express which he
knew was following. He sent the en-
gineer and fireman ahead to flag all
trains coming from that direction and
to get assistance, hurriedly calling out
to a stupid brakeman as he ran back:
pull the train ahead about a hundred
yards"
The rear car had commenced to burn
from the broken stove in the caboose
and the conductor wanted to save the
valuable freight in the others. The
brakeman got on the engine, but was
too stupid to open the throttle, and so
the whole train was burned, causing
the loss of about $4,000. When the
onductortreturned to the scene with
some of the passengers from the ex-
press, which he had stopped a half
mile away, he looked at the burning
cars, and, stepping up to the brake
man, foored him with one blow. A
qulet-looklng passenger walked up TO
the conductor and said:
"Why did you desert your train?
You could have sent that man back
with the flag and saved those cars
yourself. 1t seems to me that you
don't know your business.
why, you old FOOL replied the
conductor, glaring at his audacious
critic, "do you suppose Twas going to
trust that man? ! knc W he was fool,
like you, and that's the reason let
him monkey with the cars, while
went back to look after human lives. !"